TAKE NOT THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN

TAKE NOT THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN

The other night I watched the 1966 movie “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” on Turner Classic Movies.  Elizabeth Taylor, who played Martha, won Best Actress and Sandy Dennis, who played Honey, won Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars that year.  The movie is a dark comedy drama – not my favorite genre – but I was attracted to watch it because of its popularity and its name, a spoof on Walt Disney’s theme song for the children’s cartoon The Three Little Pigs.

Disney naming rights were expensive and so the playwright, Edgar Albee, inspired by graffiti he saw on a bathroom wall, replaced “big bad wolf” with “Virginia Woolf,” the name of a famous English novelist.  He explained in an interview that he was thinking, who’s afraid of living without false illusions?  In fact, the main actress is afraid, which the audience discovers only at the dramatic end of the movie. 

I almost stopped watching the movie because from the very beginning one of the two main characters, Martha, kept using God’s name as a curse.  Perhaps I am naïve, but I did not expect to hear it in an old black-and-white movie.  I did some research and found that, in fact, the original script used a different expression, or word, that the censors considered to be more unacceptable than using God’s name in vain.  In my opinion it was an unfortunate choice. 

What have we come to when the name of God is bantered around like it’s nothing?  When Moses stood in front of the Burning Bush and heard the name of God, he took off his sandals.  The Prophets and the Jewish people had a great reverence for God’s name.  Even today Jewish publications in English show respect for His name by dropping the vowel and leaving only the consonants (G-d).  Through Malachi God declared that “My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun.  In every place incense and pure offering will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations.”  The People of God are called upon to reverence and respect, without exception, of the holy name of God.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Let your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ mean ‘no.’  Anything else is from the evil one.”  Here he means that we should avoid making oaths and swearing by heaven or earth, or Jerusalem, or even by our own head: “for you cannot make a single hair white or black.”  We should not swear by sacred things that belong to God.  Our word without embellishment is quite enough.   

It is particularly disturbing when God’s own children misuse his name.  Unfortunately, like the rest of humanity we do not always control our tongue.  Of this Saint James had some harsh words.  The tongue “is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the image of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  This need not be so, my brothers!” Let us consider that we receive Holy Communion on our tongue, whether or not we first take it on our hand.  How could we use it to defame God? 

With the tongue we praise God, we say our prayers, we preach the gospel, we confess our sins, and we console a hurt child.  The tongue has noble uses.  These days if I hear God’s name used wrongly I spontaneously make the sign of the Cross or bow my head.  We are not always in a position to call someone out for misusing God’s name, even though we should when we can.  Gestures like making the sign of the Cross or bowing one’s head is a non-confrontational way to acknowledge the offense, to make a small reparation, and to restore its dignity among us.